Something in her tone and manner stopped Miss Pepper, and for a moment she gazed curiously at this young girl who seemed to expand into a dignified, self-assured woman as she drew off her wedding ring, and, putting it away from her sight, walked quietly to the window, where she stood looking out upon the dull November sky from which a few snowflakes were beginning to fall. Miss Pepper was puzzled, and for an instant seriously contemplated taking back a part, at least, of what she had said, but that would not have been in accordance with her theory of managing young people, and so she contented herself with doing instead of saying. She made the kind of gravy for the turkey which she remembered Edna liked, and put an extra lump of butter in the squash, and brought from the cellar a tumbler of cranberry jelly and a pot of peach preserves, and opened a bottle of pickled cauliflower, and warmed one of her best mince pies, and made black tea instead of green, because Edna never drank the latter, and then, when all was ready, said, in a half-conciliatory tone, “Come now, the victuals is ready.” Then Edna came away from the window and took her seat at the table, and took the heaped-up plate offered to her, and made some casual remarks about the _price of butter_, and asked if Blossom gave as much milk as ever, but she did not eat. She had been very hungry, but the hunger was gone now, and so she sipped her tea and toyed with her fork, and occasionally put it to her lips, but never with anything on it which Aunt Jerusha could see. In short, the dinner was a failure; and when it was over Aunt Jerry removed her turkey nearly as whole as when it went upon the table, and carried back her cranberries and peaches untouched, and felt as if she had been badly used that her dinner was thus slighted. Edna did not offer to help her as she cleared the dinner away, but sat with folded hands looking out to where a brown, blighted rose-bush was gently swayed by the wind. Once when Aunt Jerry could endure the silence no longer, she said: “What under the sun do you see out there? What are you looking at?” “My future life,” Edna replied, without so much as turning her head, and Aunt Jerry gave an extra whisk to her dish towel as she went on washing her dishes. As it began to grow dark, Miss Pepper brought out her candle, and was about to light it, when Edna started suddenly, and turning her white, stony face toward her aunt, said: “Don’t light the candle now. I like the dark the best. I want to talk with you, and can do it better if I do not see your face.” There was a ring in the voice which puzzled Aunt Jerry a little, but she humored her niece, and felt glad that at last Edna was going to talk. But she was not quite prepared for what followed when her niece, who had suddenly outgrown all fear of her aunt, spoke of some things in the past, which, had they been different, might have borne a different result and have kept her from doing what she had done.